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Natural gas service disrupted in California

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CALIFORNIA – Nearly 600 households in California were preparing for a cold Friday night after losing natural gas service earlier in the day. Columbia Gas crews worked late into the evening trying to repair a systemwide pressure failure in the borough.

More than 60 Columbia Gas workers descended on the borough after a “system issue” was discovered shortly after 8 a.m. Friday and crews repaired a damaged regulator in the 700 block of Orchard Street a couple hours later, company spokesman Scott Waitlevertch said.

Several homes in that area were evacuated at the time, although Waitlevertch said no natural gas was leaking from the area, even as some residents apparently smelled an odor near the damaged regulator.

However, crews soon discovered other problems in the system and went door to door to manually shut off service for 578 customers living in 60 blocks within the borough. Waitlevertch said the company was able to get the system pressurized by 8 p.m., and the company was asking customers to return home so that employees could run safety tests and restore service.

He attributes the system’s disruption to a weather anomaly.

Waitlevertch said the company could not predict when service would be restored to the affected customers. He added that once the problem was corrected, it would still take hours to pressurize the pipelines and return service to each individual home and business.

“This is going to be a labor-intensive process throughout the day and into the evening as we work through this,” he said.

Waitlevertch asked customers whose service had not been restored to leave their porch lights on. He said a door hanger will be left at the homes of customers who are not at home during the service restoration.

The timing couldn’t have been worse for the system disruption, with temperatures forecast to dip to minus-6 early Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.

“It happens, it happens,” borough resident Den Pennell said Friday afternoon. “As long as they get it back on by 7 or 8 o’clock (Friday night) when it starts to get real cold again.”

The borough’s fire hall and California University of Pennsylvania’s convocation center were expected to remain open overnight to serve as warming shelters for affected residents without heat. Cal U. spokeswoman Christine Kindl said the school opened its convocation center in an effort to be a “good neighbor” during the emergency. The American Red Cross was stationed at the convocation center to offer assistance.

Waitlevertch said the warming stations will remain open, “but we’re encouraging folks to return to their homes so we can get them their safety checks and return them to service.”

Staff writer Scott Beveridge contributed to this report

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